Could SEC interest in 14-week schedule affect ACC?

While the first SEC Media Days on Monday didn’t contain much in the way of interest to an ACC fan, there was one particular discussion point of which fans should take note.

During his State of the SEC to kick off Media Days, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey reportedly expressed how the idea of a 14-week college football schedule intrigues his conference.

“There’s not opposition here to a 14-week season,” Sankey said, according to CBS Sports. “There’s curiosity and interest.

“We’re open to those ideas. We’re open to a 14-week season, but we want to be very careful about not moving the standard for football practice even earlier into the summer.”

While what the SEC says doesn’t necessarily go, the football rules committee will meet in February to continue this conversation. It will be interesting to see if Sankey’s comments influence the decision of the rules committee.

If the 14-week college football schedule were to go into effect, each team would receive two built-in bye weeks. The advantage to this would be more rest for the student-athletes, but the SEC is concerned it could push practices even earlier into the summer. That would hurt the student-athletes’ chances of visiting home for a few weeks.

Not counting Championship Saturday, the 2017 college football season is already technically 14 weeks long, as it will open on Saturday, Aug. 26 this season. But on that first Saturday, a select few Pac-12 teams are the only Power 5 conference squads that will play.

The first ACC team to kick off the 2017 football season will be Wake Forest, which hosts Presbyterian on Thursday, Aug. 31.